Is this Santeria? Meaning left on grave

My father-in-law died in 2008 and was a devoted Pentecostal. Withing this past year when we visit his grave site we are finding half buried beer bottles, cigar buds, coffee cup with crumbled up corn muffin inside the cup. We thought at first that is was just some kids or bums leaving garbage near or on his grave site. Then a few months ago someone set his winter reef on fire. We called the cops and made an incident report. Now this past week someone put all kinds of stuff on his grave site. There were, melons, eggs, bananas, cup with what looked like blood in it. this was all covered with cat food. The melon had a message on it which read;

"White WashJesuwijJudesCrimeunlordleyPenta"

I tried looking this up but can't anything other than a reference to a biblical verse Matthew 23:27"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean

Interests:spirituality, art, design, reading, photography, my family (of course), nature, biology, genetics... I could go on, but I think I will stop here.

Posted 14 May 2012 - 06:32 PM

I don't know if its Santeria or not. It could be a person or group that never liked your father-in- law and are now messing with his grave and by doing this, his family. It could be a Vodoo ritual too. Can you get a video camera up to moniter his grave? I am sorry you and your family have to deal with this.

Thanks for the reply. Did you take a look at the photos? Thanks for the link but I read all about Santeria in Wikipedia and on other sites. Unfortunately we can't put cameras up but we are trying to monitor the grave site at odd hours hoping to catch who ever is doing this off guard.

Interests:spirituality, art, design, reading, photography, my family (of course), nature, biology, genetics... I could go on, but I think I will stop here.

Posted 15 May 2012 - 07:52 PM

Hi! I have been checking out your photos. The first one is more interesting to me than the second. The stuff left might give us a better clue as to what is going on. What state and area is the grave located? For some reason I am thinking of some kind of Voodoo.

How about a trail camera? it takes still photos or video and can be mounted almost anywhere.

Interests:spirituality, art, design, reading, photography, my family (of course), nature, biology, genetics... I could go on, but I think I will stop here.

Posted 17 May 2012 - 05:49 PM

Thanks for the list. If you feel more comfortable you can pm me too. I don't claim expertise, but maybe if we put our heads togeather, we can get this figured out. If there are a lot of Cubans and Purtro Rican's in the area, then you proably are dealing with some type of Santeria. If you have a lot of Hatian diasporia in the area, then its Hatian Voodoo. It's too bad that the book on Voodoo rituals was check out of my local libery, but I did pick up "Mysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria and Obeah" by Lionel & Patricia Fanthorpe. I am hoping to get a good, overall view on the origins of these hybrid religions.

If you look around in the area of your late father-in-law's grave, is there a bench or light post or tree near? something to attach a trail camera to?

Yes, we are Puerto Ricans and yes that area does have a large Puerto Rican community. The detectives called my sister-in-law today and they feel this looks more like a hoax than Santeria but they are not sure and still investigating. They feel its a hoax because it has elements of both voodoo and Santeria and looks random/or quickly thrown together. My Father-in-law knew very little English and the wording on the melon were in English not Spanish, this was a little suspicious to us as well. We just feel that someone would not go through all the trouble to take feces and bury it in the dirt or arrange all the fruit and other elements that were left. Yes, the English words look out of place but still very possible to be real and not a hoax.

We thought about a trail camera but the minimum price we saw at our local outdoor store was $200. That is just a little too expensive right now to risk it being lost, broken or stolen. There are no close by trees anyway, the tombstone is right out in an open area. We have been making more random trips over to the grave site and so far nothing.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the white powder you can see in the new photo is a mix of sugar and flour and that stuff was all over under the cat food.

Interests:spirituality, art, design, reading, photography, my family (of course), nature, biology, genetics... I could go on, but I think I will stop here.

Posted 18 May 2012 - 05:08 PM

The police could be correct, but I am not sure. This might be some from of Santeria that is a variant from the norm. Or somebody combined Santeria and Voodoo. Then there are the other versions of the hybrid african/christian religions. Thanks for the new photos. I am going to suggest that you and your family think about who may have dis-liked your late father-in-law and might carry some grudge against him. This won't be easy to do, but it might give your family a direction to hunt in.

Interests:spirituality, art, design, reading, photography, my family (of course), nature, biology, genetics... I could go on, but I think I will stop here.

Posted 18 May 2012 - 05:26 PM

Oh some thoughts I forgot to post about the words on the melon:

Generally "Penta" represents a 5-sided figure; a "Pentacle". If used upside down, it's associated with "Black Mass Rites" etc, which is the opposite of the "Lordly"; as you say your late Father-In-Law was a devout Pentecostal. (could related that with the "unlordly" that was carved on the melon)

The "Pentacle" is also typically associated with the "Wicca" Cult (though not the upside down version).

Judes could be related to Judas, who betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Though Jude can be a nickname too. (remember the song "hey jude?")